Descendant
by aya-kun
Summary: A young man searches...


A/N: I don't know. I just ended up writing something like this. Hmm…

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Descendant

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...And so lasted the secret history –the other side of the devil's mask, known only to them and their family. And when the known "truth" was slowly forgotten, so too did the secrets. The bloody princess was soon forgotten and the man who held the world in his hands was soon fading into a bad memory. It was slowly coming. The time to let go.

_200 years later_

A young man, still to reach his third decade, goes in search of the history behind his name. After the purging of the written words (cultural revolution), history had been rewritten and facts no longer seemed true. He'd travelled the world searching. And his efforts had lead to a place that had been mentioned so many times in the history he had collected, JapaA. after coming here and following the snatches of the past he'd been able to find, he came to hear of whispers. Whispers that said the truth was better left unknown, that it was all lies, that it didn't matter anymore. But he didn't listen. Because it _did_ matter. To him, especially to him, it mattered. He wanted to know. Needed to know...

...Why when he looked in the mirror he saw someone else. The purple eyes that ran through his family line. The eyes that stared back at him with such an expression, he couldn't recognize.

He came to notice among his work, especially among the journals of his family and of others, mentions of people glimpsed and thought to be ghosts. Sudden help when none were near. Imaginary friends that made their children's words bring sorrow to their parents.

And thus he came to be in Japan. The place where it all started. He'd come to hear of a couple who had many stories to tell, who had mystery attached to their being, and yet charm that made others seek them out. They were known for the kindness and their solidarity.

He was finally reaching the town where they were said to reside. It is night fall and he was still a few miles to go. Being alone on a dusty road and open field made him feel nervous. He needed to find shelter. Maybe a place to make camp for the night. But as he rose to the path he'd been walking on, he found a light, a house. He hesitates and then decides. Cautious, he rings the doorbell.

Surprised, he sees his own eyes reflect back at him, he stares at his younger reflection. The young man brings him out of his wonder. Asks him who he is, asks him mundane things, normal things. His name, what he wanted, was he lost perhaps, was he hungry, maybe needed a place to stay. He was told he looked tired. Slowly, he sees the differences between them. The different hair color, the young man's black ones to his own dark brown. The paler skin color, his slightly tanned, taken from his many greats-grandfather.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he asks if they knew a shortcut to the nearest town. The young man, calling himself Lulu (a strange name to call a guy), shakes his head, says no and offers food and room to sleep in. While he hesitates the young man decides for him, calling out a woman's name. She calls back to him and he hears her coming.

She came around the corner and stood watching him. She was beautiful and young, her green hair and golden eyes held a certain something. He feels like he'd just seen that something. When he looks to the young man, he catches him observing him. But the young man just smiles, but before that, he saw it. That same something he'd seen in the woman's eyes. He saw it again when they looked at each other. Before the look changed became one of skepticism and challenge. Such a difference from the love he'd seen.

These two obviously got well on together to convey words in silence. The young man apologizes and excuses himself as he comes in. He felt that it would be safe to take up their offer.

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The night he spent there would forever be branded in his memory. Especially as the next day he'd said goodbye and gone to town only to find that the same people he was looking for had been the ones he'd been with. Rushing back had resulted in nothing. The place was empty, left alone as if its occupants would just come back anytime. But they didn't. He knew that because he'd waited. He'd stayed in that home (for that was what it felt like) for months. The people in town assuming him to be a relative of sorts, a first since the two had come to town.

Nothing seemed to be have been missing. Except...he lifted the frame Lulu had turned down when he saw him looking around and memorizing, a habit he'd explained that had come to be for when he started travelling. But really, it had been because of his upbringing and having picture perfect memory.

He lifted the frame, and remembered. The photo. His eyes grow wide as he recalled further. It was the same picture he'd seen among the journals he'd found. A picture that had worn edges like it had been kept and then brought out again and again and then finally flattened and framed inside the room his many greats-grandparents had in their room. A room he'd frequented and visited often. To read, to breathe, to immerse himself in his history.

He'd seen that picture often enough from boyhood till the lat he had been there. A picture that held three children holding hands and posing, smiling at the camera. The girl in between the two boys had her eyes closed and she sat on a wheelchair. One boy had the same green eyes his father held, green eyes that came from his father's father, as well as the same dark brown hair. The other...The other had his purple eyes and the same coloring as the young man whose house he now stood in.

It was him. It was _them_. Lelouch, and the gray witch, C.C. Only, Lulu hadn't called her that, he'd heard her name. Saw the reluctant warmth enter her eyes every time Lulu...no, Lelouch had called her name. A name that had not been known.

"Suzaku-san. I found them," he prayed to his ancestor. Suzaku had always, always mentioned over and over in his journals his thoughts about the two. His worry over the witch however reluctant it was, his pain at his best friend's missing body. "They're safe."

This young man, this Lelouch closed his eyes and remembered his twentieth year. That day, he'd taken the picture with him. Taken it out of the frame and on instinct turned it over. He'd seen and read the fading inscription. _Friends always...Suzaku, Nunally, Lelouch_

Lelouch mentally flipped the picture again and stared at his namesake. He looked over at the boy whose decisions in his latter years had changed the world.

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It had been some months now. Lelouch looked about the house again, his bag all set and stationed by the door. He'd realized they weren't coming back, it was time to go. And with such a timely summons, a knock came to his door. He heard his childhood friend and pushy fiancé call out to him. Heard her attendant try to calm her down.

"My Lady. Please."

"Lelouch. I know you're in there. I came to pick you up. It's time to go. You have a friggin' country to run."

Lelouch walked to and opened the door, smiling at Kallen. She stopped her tirade and looked him up and down. Seeing the bag by his feet, she nodded firmly. "Good. You're all set."

"Yes, my lady."

Lelouch laughed. Kallen was gaping. He quickly picked up his bag and stood by her side, reached for her hand and kissed it. He laughed again at her blushing face. Kallen stared at him. "What's up with you? You're too carefree. It's freaking me out." Her serious and too kind idiot fiancé was suddenly teasing and laughing at nothing.

The future emperor shook his head. "It's nothing." That's right. It wasn't anything anymore. Knowing that those two still existed, confirming his suspicion and easing Suzaku-san's worry was enough for him. He didn't need to talk to them, didn't need to ask questions. That one night when he'd eaten with them, talked with them unaware, that night was enough. He'd seen them, felt them to be real, and saw them happy.

That's right. It was enough.

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"Do you think he'd make a good emperor?"

"Hmm. Right now, he does look like one, doesn't he?"

"I suppose."

"Suzaku's hair." Lelouch laughed. To have a mix of himself and his friend felt strange. But this Lelouch's personality, in the one night they were together, was definitely Nunally's.

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A/N: Uhmm…yeah. Weird, ne? And I'm a hardcore LuluxCC fan but since this Lelouch was another Lelouch and since Lulu already has C.C. (not that I'd have written C.C. making passes at a second Lulu –there will only ever be one Lulu) I decided to give it someone named Kallen is all. :P


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